The United States is prepared to hold direct talks with Iran in the standoff over its nuclear ambitions, Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday - but he insisted that Tehran must show it is serious and Washington won't engage in such talks "just for the exercise."

Washington has indicated in the past that it's prepared to talk directly with Iran, and talks involving all five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany have made little headway. Several rounds of international sanctions have cut into Iran's oil sales and financial transactions.

The U.S. has long made clear that it is prepared to meet directly with the Iranian leadership, he added - "that offer stands but it must be real and tangible and there has to be an agenda that they're prepared to speak to."

"We're not prepared to do it just for the exercise," Biden told the Munich Security Conference.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose country is a key player in the six-nation talks with Iran, said he "would strongly support what Vice President Biden said about the need for incentives to be clearly shown to Iran."

"We have to convince Iran that it is not about the regime change," he said.

Iran insists it does not want nuclear arms and argues it has a right to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear power program, but suspicion persists that the real aim is nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic hid much of its nuclear program until it was revealed from the outside more than a decade ago. And defying UN Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment, Iran has instead expanded it.

"Iran should not wait any longer to take up the willingness Vice President Biden has stressed to hold substantial negotiations on its nuclear program," said Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle of Germany, whose country has been one of those trying to resolve the issue. He added that 2013 would be "decisive" for hopes of a diplomatic solution.

"From our point of view, announcing an accelerated expansion of uranium enrichment in Iran is the wrong signal," Westerwelle said.

Biden underlined that "our policy is not containment - it is to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon."

The conference - an annual gathering of top security officials - also gave Biden an opportunity to address the civil war in Syria. He planned to hold separate meetings with Lavrov, international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and Syria's top opposition leader, Moaz al-Khatib. Russia is a longtime ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Biden stressed the conviction of the U.S. and many others that "President Assad - a tyrant hell-bent on clinging to power - is no longer fit to lead the Syrian people and he must go." He said that "the opposition continues to grow stronger."

Despite differences, "we can all agree on the increasingly deep plight of the Syrian people and the responsibility of the international community to address that plight," he told an audience that included Lavrov.

But Lavrov fired back that "there are a lot of question marks about the Western approaches to those developments," in the region, asking whether supporting antigovernment protesters justified terrorists, and questioning when it is "permissible to cooperate with regimes and when is it legitimate to argue for their removal."

"We are all interested in the stability of the Mideast and the African continent," and for governments to be democratic and peaceful, Lavrov said. "If we agree on these common objectives we could probably agree on some transparent and common rules for all actors to follow."

Lavrov also suggested Biden's statement that Assad must go was counterproductive.

"The persistence of those who say that priority number one is the removal of President Assad - I think it's the single biggest reason for the continued tragedy in Syria."

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Why not put both Biden and Peres on the same room and see who figures
out how to open the door first??? Between the two of them not an ounce
of common sense. Best line from Biden " JOBS is a three letter word
for the economy.

That's the only deal that the West should agree to to lift sanctions
given Iran's record of subterfuge, or as they call it,
"takia". In fact, I don't think the West is sanctioning Iran
enough. China buys lots of oil from Iran. The West should make it clear
to the Chinese that we'll buy a lot less of their stuff unless they
start getting their oil from other sources. Really break their backs.

you obviously know nothing about world affairs,break the backs of the
chinese? the u.s. owes china trillions in borrowed currency, china is
buying up property as fast as they can write the check, and they have a
million man standing army. if anyones going to be breaking backs, its
going to be china doing the breaking.

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